whatever displeases it, and disowns the grand ideas and leading truths of universal Christianity, -it would never have overpassed the threshold of an academy, of a cloister or even of a monk's cell. But it had no sympathy with what is commonly intended by the word Protestantism. Far from having sustained any loss of vital energy, it arose at once like a man full of strength and resolution. Two considerations will account for the rapidity and extent of this revolution. One of these must be sought in God, the other among men. The impulse was given by an unseen hand of power, and the change which took place was the work of God. This will be the conclusion arrived at by every one who considers the subject with impartiality and attention, and does not rest in a superficial view. But the historian has a further office to perform:-God acts by second causes. Many circumstances, which have often escaped observation, gradually prepared men for the great transformation of the sixteenth century, so that the human mind was ripe when the hour of its emancipation arrived. The office of the historian is to combine these two principal elements in the picture he presents. This is what is attempted in the present work. We shall be easily understood, so long as we investigate the secondary causes which contributed to bring about the revolution we have undertaken to describe. Many will, perhaps, be slower of comprehension, and will be inclined even to charge us with superstition, when we shall ascribe to God the accomplishment of the work. And yet that thought is what we particularly cherish. The history takes as its guiding star the simple and pregnant truth that GOD IS IN HISTORY. But this truth is commonly forgotten, and sometimes disputed. It seems fit, therefore, that we should open our views, and by so doing justify the course we have taken. In these days, history can no longer be that dead letter of facts to recording which the majority of the earlier historians confined themselves. It is felt that, as in man's nature, so in his history, there are two elements,-matter and spirit. Our great writers, unwilling to restrict themselves to the production of a simple recital, which would have been but a barren chronicle, have sought for some principle of life to animate the materials of the past. Some have borrowed such a principle from the rules of art; they have aimed at the simplicity, truth, and picturesque of description; and have endeavoured to make their narratives live by the interest of the events themselves. Others have sought in philosophy the spirit which should fecundate their labours. With incidents they have intermingled reflections, instructions, political and philosophic truths, and have thus enlivened their recitals with a moral which they have elicited from them, or ideas they have been able to associate with them. Both these methods are, doubtless, useful, and should be employed within certain limits. But there is another source whence we must above all seek for the ability to enter into the understanding, the mind, and the life of past ages;-and this is Religion. History must live by that principle of life which is proper to it, and that life is God. He must be acknowledged and proclaimed in history; -and the course of events must be displayed as the annals of the government of a Supreme Disposer. I have descended into the lists to which the recitals of our historians attracted me. I have there seen the actions of men and of nations developing themselves with power, and encountering in hostile collision;-I have heard I know not what clangour of arms; but nowhere has my attention been directed to the majestic aspect of the Judge who presides over the struggle. And yet there is a principle of movement emanating from God himself in all the changes among nations. God looks upon that wide stage on which the generations of men successively meet and struggle. He is there, it is true, an invisible God; but if the profaner multitude pass before Him without noticing Him, because he is "a God that hideth himself,"-thoughtful spirits, and such as feel their need of the principle of their being, seek him with the more earnestness, and are not satisfied until they lie prostrate at his feet. And their search is richly rewarded. For, from the heights to which they are obliged to climb to meet their God, -the world's history, instead of offering, as to the ignorant crowd, a confused chaos, appears a majestic temple, which the invisible hand of God erects, and which rises to His glory above the rock of humanity. Shall we not acknowledge the hand of God in those great men, or in those mighty nations which arise, come forth, as it were, from the dust of the earth, and give a new impulse, a new form, or a new destiny to human affairs? Shall we not acknowledge His hand in those heroes who spring up among men at appointed times; who display activity and energy beyond the ordinary limits of human strength; and around whom individuals and nations gather, as if to a superior and mysterious power? Who launched them into the expanse of ages, like comets of vast extent and flaming trains, appearing at long intervals, to scatter among the superstitious tribes of men anticipations of plenty and joy-or of calamities and terror? Who, but God himself? Alexander would seek his own origin in the abodes of the Divinity. And in the most irreligious age there is no eminent glory but is seen in some way or other seeking to connect itself with the idea of divine interposition. And those revolutions which, in their progress, precipitate dynasties and nations to the dust, those heaps of ruin which we meet with in the sands of the desert, those majestic remains which the field of human history offers to our reflection, do they not testify aloud to the truth that God is in History? Gibbon, seated on the ancient Capitol, and contemplating its noble ruins, acknowledged the intervention of a superior destiny. He saw, he felt its presence; wherever his eye turned it met him; that shadow of a mysterious power reappeared from behind every ruin; and he conceived the project of depicting its operation in the disorganization, the decline, and the corruption of that power of Rome which had enslaved the nations. Shall not that mighty hand which this man of admirable genius, but who had not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, discerned among the scattered monuments of Romulus and of Marcus Aurelius,-the busts of Cicero, and Virgil,-Trajan's trophies, and Pompey's horses, be confessed by us as the hand of our God? But what superior lustre does the truth-that God is in history-acquire under the Christian dispensation? What is Jesus Christ-but God's purpose in the world's history? It was the discovery of Jesus Christ which admitted the greatest of modern historians to the just comprehension of his subject." The gospel," says he, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter of all revolutions, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world, it is life, it is immortality. Since I have known the Saviour, every thing is clear; with him, there is nothing I cannot solve."t Thus speaks this distinguished historian; and, in truth, is it not the keystone of the arch,-is it not the mysterious bond which holds together the things of the earth and connects them with those of heaven,-that God has appeared in our nature? What! God has been born into this world, and we are asked to think and write, as if that men scarce think of finding it elsewhere than He were not everywhere working out his own where they see it inscribed in large letters on a will in its history? Jesus Christ is the true God banner that time has made venerable. We do of human history; the very lowliness of his ap- not say that all Catholicism is incapable of affordpearance may be regarded as one proof of it. If ing to man what he stands in need of. We think man designs a shade or a shelter upon earth, we Catholicism should be carefully distinguished look to see preparations, materials, scaffolding, from Popery. Popery is, in our judgment, an and workmen. But God when he will give shade erroneous and destructive system; but we are or shelter, takes the small seed which the new far from confounding Catholicism with Popery. born infant might clasp in its feeble hand, and de- How many respectable men,-how many sincere posits it in the bosom of the earth, and from that Christians, has not the Catholic Church comprised seed, imperceptible in its beginning, he produces within its pale! What important services were the majestic tree, under whose spreading boughs rendered by Catholicism to the existing European the families of men may find shelter. To achieve nations, in the age of their first formation,at a great results by imperceptible means, is the law period when itself was still richly imbued with of the divine dealings. the Gospel, and when Popery was as yet only seen behind it as a faint shadow! But those times are past. In our day, attempts are made to reconnect Catholicism with Popery; and if Catholic and Christian truths are put forward, they are but as baits made use of to draw men into the net of the hierarchy. There is, therefore, nothing to be hoped from that quarter. Has Popery renounced so much as one of its observances, of its doctrines, or of its claims? The religion which was insupportable in other ages will be less so in ours? What regeneration has ever emanated from Rome? Is it from that priestly hierarchy, full, even to overflow, of earthly passions,-that that spirit of faith, of charity, of hope can come forth, which alone can save us? Can an exhausted system, which has scarcely strength for its own need, and is everywhere in the struggles of death, -living only by external aids,-can such a system communicate life, and breathe throughout Christian society the heavenly breath that it re It is this law which has received its noblest illustration in Jesus Christ. The religion which has now taken possession of the gates of all nations, which at this hour reigns, or hovers over all the tribes of the earth, from east to west, and which even a sceptical philosophy is compelled to acknowledge as the spiritual and social law of this world; that religion, than which there is nothing nobler under the vault of heaven,-nay, in the very universe of creation;-what was its commencement?... A child born in the meanest town of the most despised country of the earth; -a child whose mother had not even what falls to the lot of the most indigent and wretched woman of our cities,-a room to bring forth in;-a child born in a stable and placed in an ox's crib .... O God! I acknowledge thee there, and I adore thee. The Reformation recognised the same law of God's operations: and it had the consciousness that it fulfilled it. The thought that God is inquires? history is often put forth by the Reformers. We find it on one occasion in particular expressed by Luther, under one of those comparisons familiar and grotesque, yet not without a certain sublimity, which he took pleasure in using, that he might be understood by the people. The world," said he one day, in a conversation with his friend at table,-"the world is a vast and grand game of cards, made up of emperors, kings, and princes. The pope for several centuries has beaten emperors, princes, and kings. They have been put down and taken up by him. Then came our Lord God; he dealt the cards; he took the most worthless of them all, (Luther,) and with it he has beaten the Pope, the conqueror of the kings of the earth... There is the ace of God. 'He has cast down the mighty from their seats, and has exalted them of low degree,' as Mary says. The age of which I am about to retrace the history is most important for our own generation. Man, when he feels his weakness, is generally inclined to seek assistance in the institutions he sees standing around him, or else in groundless inventions of his imagination. The history of the Reformation shows that nothing new can be wrought with "old things," and that if, according to the Saviour's word, we need new bottles for new wine, we need also new wine for new bottles. The history of the Reformation directs men to God, who orders all events in history; to that divine word, ever ancient in the eternal nature of the truths it contains, ever new in the regenerative influence it exercises, that word which, three centuries ago, purified society, brought back the faith of God to souls enfeebled by superstition, and which, in every age of man's history, is the source whence cometh salvation. It is singular to observe many persons, impelled by a vague desire to believe in something settled, addressing themselves now-a-days to old Catholicism. In one view, the movement is natural. Religion is so little known (in France) This craving void in the heart and mind which betrays itself in our contemporaries, will lead others to apply to that modern Protestantism which has, in many parts, taken the place of the powerful doctrines of Apostles and Reformers? A notable uncertainty of doctrine prevails in many of those Reformed churches whose first members scaled with their blood the clear and liv ing faith that animated their hearts. Men distinguished for their information, and, in all other things, susceptible of generous emotions, are found carried away into singular aberrations. A vague faith in the divine authority of the Gospel is the only standard they will maintain. But what is this Gospel? The whole question turns on that; and yet on that they are silent, or else each one speaks after his own mind. What avails it to know that God has placed in the midst of the nations a vessel containing their cure, if we are regardless what it contains, or fail to appropriate its contents to ourselves? This system cannot fill up the void of the times. Whilst the faith of Apostles and Reformers discovers itself, at this day, everywhere active and effectual for the conversion of the world, this vague system does nothing,-throws light on nothing,-vivifies nothing. But let us not abandon all hopes. Does not Catholicism confess the great doctrines of Christianity? does it not acknowledge the one God, Father, Son, and Spirit,-Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier? And that vague Protestantism,does it not hold in its hand the book of life, for conviction and instruction in righteousness? And how many upright minds, honoured in the sight of men and beloved of God, are there not found among those subjected to these two systems! How can we help loving them? How refrain from ardently desiring their complete emancipation from human elements? Charity is boundless; it embraces the most distant opinions to lead them to the feet of Jesus Christ. Already there are indications that these two extreme opinions are in motion, and drawing nearer to Jesus Christ, who is the centre of the truth. Are there not already some Roman Catholic congregations among whom the reading of the Bible is recommended and practised? and as to Protestant rationalism, how many steps has it not already taken towards Jesus Christ? It never was the offspring of the Reformation; for the history of that great change will show that it was an epoch of faith:-but may we not be permitted to hope that it is drawing nearer to it? Will not the power of the truth come forth to it from the word of God? and will not its coming have the effect of transforming it? Already we often see in it a feeling of religion, inadequate no doubt, but yet a movement in the direction of sound learning, encouraging us to look for more definite ad vances. But modern Protestantism, like old Catholicism, is, in itself, a thing from which nothing can be hoped, a thing quite powerless. Something very different is necessary, to restore to men of our day the energy that saves. A something is requisite which is not of man, but of God. Give me," said Archimedes, "a point out of the world, and I will raise the world from its poles." True Christianity is this standing beyond the world, which lifts the heart of man from its double pivot of selfishness and sensuality, and which will one day move the whole world from its evil way, and cause it to turn on a new axis of righteousness and peace. Whenever religion has been the subject of discussion, there have been three points to which our attention have been directed. God,-Man,-and the Priest. There can be but three kinds of religion on this earth, God, Man, or the Priest, is its author or its head. I call that the religion of the Priest, which is devised by the priest, for the glory of the priest, and in which a priestly caste is dominant. I apply the name of the religion of Man to those systems and various opinions framed by man's reason, and which, as they are the offspring of his infirmity, are, by consequence, destitute of all sanative efficacy. I apply the words religion of God,-to the Truth, such as God himself has given it, and of which the object and the effect are God's glory and Man's salvation. Hierarchism, or the religion of the priest; Christianity or the religion of God; rationalism, or the religion of man;-such are the three doctrines which in our day divide Christendom. There is no salvation, either for man or society, in hierarchism or in rationalism. Christianity alone can give life to the world; and, unhappily, of the three prevailing systems, it is not that which numbers most followers. Some, however, it has. Christianity is operating its work of regeneration among many Catholics of Germany, and doubtless also of other countries. It is now accomplishing it with more purity, and power, as we think, among the evangelical Christians of Switzerland, of France, of Great Britain, and of the United States. Blessed be God, such individual or social regenerations, wrought by the Gospel, are no longer in these days prodigies to be sought in ancient annals. We have ourselves witnessed a powerful awakening, begun in the midst of conflicts and trials, in a small republic, whose citizens live happy and tranquil in the bosom of the wonders with which creation surrounds them.* It is but a beginning; -and already from the plenteous horn of the Gospel we see come forth among this people a * Canton of Vaud. noble, elevated, and courageous profession of the great truths of God; a liberty ample and real, a government full of zeal and intelligence; an affection, elsewhere too rarely found, of magistrates for people, and of the people for their magistrates; a powerful impulse communicated to education and general instruction, which will make of this country an example for imitation; a slow, but certain amelioration in morals; men of talent, all Christians, and who rival the first writers of our language. All these riches developed between the dark Jura and the summits of the Alps, on the magnificent shores of Lake Leman, must strike the traveller attracted thither by the wonders of those mountains and valleys, and present to his meditation one of the most eloquent pages which the Providence of God has inscribed in favour of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the history of the Reformation in general that I propose to write. I intend to trace it among different nations, to point out the same effects of the same truths, as well as the diversities which take their origin in the varieties of the national character. But it is in Germany especially that we shall see and describe the history of the Reformation. It is there we find its primitive type;-it is there that it offers the fullest development of its organization. It is there that it bears, above all, the marks of a revolution not confined to one or more nations, but, on the contrary, affecting the world at large. The German Reformation is the true and fundamental Reformation. It is the great planet, and the rest revolve in wider or narrower circles around it, like satellites drawn after it by its movement. And yet the Reformation in SWITZERLAND must, in some respects, be considered as an exception, both because it took place at the very same time as that of Germany, and independently of it; and because it bore, especially at a later period, some of those grander features which are seen in the latter. Notwithstanding that recollections of ancestry and of refuge,-and the memory of struggle, suffering, and exile, endured in the cause of the Reformation in France, give, in my view, a peculiar charm to the history of its vicissitudes,-I nevertheless doubt whether I could place it in the same rank as those which I have here spoken of. From what I have said, it will be seen that I believe the Reformation to be the work of God. Nevertheless, as its historian, I hope to be impartial. I think I have spoken of the principal Roman Catholic actors in the great drama, Leo X., Albert of Magdeburg, Charles V., and Doctor Eck, &c. more favourably than the majority of historians. And, on the other hand, I have had no wish to conceal the faults and errors of the Reformers. This history has been drawn from the original sources with which a long residence in Germany, the Low Countries, and Switzerland has made me familiar: as well as from the study, in the original languages, of documents relating to the religious history of Great Britain and other countries. Down to this time we possess no history of that remarkable period. Nothing indicated that the deficiency would be supplied when I commenced this work. This circumstance could alone have led me to undertake it;-and I here allege it in my justification. The want still exists;and I pray Him from whom cometh down every good gift, to cause that this work may, by His blessing, be made profitable to some who shall read it. HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. BOOK I. STATE OF EUROPE PRIOR TO THE REFORMATION. Rise of the Papacy-Early Encroachments-Co-operation of the Bishops-Unity of the ChurchVisible Unity-Primacy of St. Peter-Patriarchates-Policy of Rome-Charlemagne-Disorders of Rome Hildebrand-The Crusades-Spiritual Despotism-Salvation by Grace-PelagianismThe Church-Penance-Indulgences-Purgatory-Tax of Indulgences-The Papacy and Christianity-Theology-Dialectics-Predestination-Penance-Religion-Relics-Morals-Corruption -Disorders of the Priests-Bishops and Popes-Alexander VI.-Cæsar Borgia-General Corrup tion-Ciceronians-Efforts for Reform-Prospects of Christianity-State of the Papacy-Internal Divisions-Carnality of the Church-Popular Feeling-Doctrine-Development of Mind-Revival of Letters-Philosophy-Principle of Reformation-Witnesses-Mystics-Wiclif-Huss-Witnesses The Empire-Peace-State of the People-State of Germany-Switzerland-Italy-Spain -Portugal-France-Low Countries-England-Bohemia and Hungary-Frederic the WiseMen of Letters-Reuchlin-His Labours-Reuchlin in Italy-Contest with the Dominicans-The Hebrew Writings-Erasmus-Erasmus and Luther-Hütten-Literæ Obscurorum Virorum-Hutten at Brussels-Sickingen-Cronberg-Hans Sachs--General Ferment. THE world was tottering on its old founda- | ples, beginning at Jerusalem, travelled over tions when Christianity appeared. The va- the Roman empire and the world, everywhere rious religions which had sufficed for an earlier proclaiming their Master the author of everage no longer satisfied the nations. The lasting salvation. From the midst of a peomind of the existing generation could no ple who rejected intercourse with others-prolonger tabernacle in the ancient forms. The ceeded a mercy that invited and embraced gods of the nations had lost their oracles-as all. A great number of Asiatics, of Greeks, the nations had lost their liberty in Rome. of Romans, hitherto led by their priests to the Brought face to face in the Capitol, they had feet of dumb idols, believed at their word. mutually destroyed the illusion of their di- The Gospel suddenly beamed on the earth vinity. A vast void had ensued in the reli- like a ray of the sun," says Eusebius. A gious opinions of mankind. breath of life moved over this vast field of A kind of Deism, destitute of spirit and death. A new, a holy people was formed vitality, hovered for a time over the abyss in upon the earth; and the astonished world bewhich had been engulphed the superstitions held in the disciples of the despised Galilean of heathenism.-But, like all negative opi-a purity, a self-denial, a charity, a heroism, nions, it had no power to edify. The narrow of which they retained no idea. prepossessions of the several nations had The new religion had two features amongst fallen with the fall of their gods,-their various populations melted, the one into the other. In Europe, Asia, Africa, all was but one vast empire, and the human family began to feel its comprehensiveness and its unity. Then the Word was made flesh. God appeared amongst men, and as Man, to save that which was lost. In Jesus of Nazareth dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. This is the greatest event in the annals of all time. The former ages had been a preparation for it; the latter unroll from it. It is their centre and connecting link. From this period the popular superstitions had no significancy, and such feeble relics of them as outlived the general wreck of incredulity, vanished before the majestic orb of eternal truth. many others which especially distinguished it from all the human systems which fell before it. One had reference to the ministers of its worship,-the other to its doctrines. The ministers of paganism were almost the gods of those human inventions. The priests led the people, so long at least as their eyes were not opened. A vast and haughty hierarchy oppressed the world. Jesus Christ dethroned these living idols, abolished this proud hierarchy,-took from man what man had taken from God, and re-established the soul in direct communication with the divine fountain of truth, by proclaiming himself the only Master and the only Mediator. your master, even Christ, (said he,) and all ye are brethren." (Matt. xxiii.) "One is As to doctrine, human religions had taught that salvation was of man. The religions of The Son of Man lived thirty-three years on the earth had invented an earthly salvation. this earth. He suffered, he died. he rose They had taught men that heaven would be again, he ascended into heaven. His disci-given to them as a reward; they had fixed its price, and what a price. The religion of God | pendence. The bishops of Rome regarded as taught that salvation was His gift, and ema- a right the superiority which the neighbournated from an amnesty and sovereign grace. ing churches had voluntarily yielded. The God hath given to us eternal life. (1 John encroachments of power form a large portion v. 11.) of all history: the resistance of those whose rights are invaded forms the other part: and the ecclesiastical power could not escape that intoxication which leads those who are lifted up to seek to raise themselves still higher. It felt all the influence of this general weakness of human nature. Undoubtedly Christianity cannot be summed up in these two points: but they seem to govern the subject, especially when historically viewed. And as it is impossible to trace the opposition between truth and error in all things, we have selected its most prominent features. Such were the two principles that composed the religion which then took possession of the Empire and of the whole world. The standing of a Christian is in them,-and apart from them, Christianity itself disappears. On their preservation or their loss depended its decline or its growth. One of these principles was to govern the history of the religion; the other its doctrine. They both presided in the beginning. Let us see how they were lost: and let us first trace the fate of the former. The Church was in the beginning a community of brethren. All its members were taught of God; and each possessed the liberty of drawing for himself from the divine fountain of life. John vi. 45. The epistles, which then settled the great questions of doctrine, did not bear the pompous title of any single man, or ruler. We find from the holy Scriptures that they began simply with these words: "The apostles, elders, and brethren, to our brethren." Acts xv. 23. But the writings of these very apostles forewarn us that from the midst of these brethren, there shall arise a power which shall overthrow this simple and primitive order. 2 Thess. ii. Let us contemplate the formation and trace the development of this power alien to the Church. Nevertheless the supremacy of the Roman bishop was at first limited to the overlooking of the churches, in the territory lawfully subject to the prefect of Rome. But the rank which this imperial city held in the world offered to the ambition of its first pastors a prospect of wider sway. The consideration which the different Christian bishops enjoyed in the second century was in proportion to the rank of the city over which they presided. Rome was the greatest, the richest, and the most powerful city in the world. It was the seat of empire, the mother of nations. "All the inhabitants of the earth are hers," said Julian, and Claudian declares her to be "the fountain of laws." 913 If Rome be the Queen of cities, why should not her pastor be the King of Bishops? Why should not the Roman church be the mother of Christendom? Why should not all nations be her children, and her authority be the universal law? It was natural to the heart of man to reason thus. Ambitious Rome did so. Hence it was that when heathen Rome fell, she bequeathed to the humble minister of the God of peace, seated in the midst of her own ruins, the proud titles which her invincible sword had won from the nations of the earth. The bishops of the other parts of the Empire, yielding to the charm that Rome had exercised for ages over all nations, followed Paul of Tarsus, one of the chiefest apostles the example of the Campagna, and aided the of the new religion, had arrived at Rome, the work of usurpation. They willingly rencapital of the empire and of the world, preach-dered to the Bishop of Rome something of ing the salvation that cometh from God only. A church was formed beside the throne of the Cæsars. Founded by this same apostle, it was at first composed of converted Jews, Greeks, and some inhabitants of Rome. For a while it shone brightly as a light set upon a hill, and its faith was everywhere spoken of. But ere long it declined from its first simplicity The spiritual dominion of Rome arose as its political and military power had done before, and was slowly and gradually extended. The first pastors or bishops of Rome employed themselves in the beginning in converting to the faith of Christ the towns and villages that surrounded the city. The necessity which the bishops and pastors felt of referring in cases of difficulty to an enlightened guide, and the gratitude which they owed to the metropolitan church, led them to maintain an intimate union with her. As is generally the consequence in such circumstances, this reasonable union soon degenerated into de that honour which was due to this Queen of cities: nor was there at first any thing of dependence in the honour thus yielded. They acted towards the Roman pastor as equals toward an equal; but usurped power swells like the avalanche. Exhortations, at first simply fraternal, soon became commands in the mouth of the Roman Pontiff. A chief place amongst equals appeared to him a throne. The Bishops of the West favoured this encroachment of the Roman pastors, either from jealousy of the Eastern bishops, or because they preferred subjection to a pope to the dominion of a temporal power. On the other hand, the theological sects which distracted the east, strove, each for itself, to gain an interest at Rome, hoping to triumph over its opponents by the support of the principal of the Western churches. Rome carefully recorded these requests and intercessions, and smiled to see the nations throw themselves into her arms. She neg |